


The Short and Long of it

by Civillian



Category: The Knick (TV)
Genre: "Some.", And warnings for The Knick in general., F/M, Feel free to suggest prompts, Gen, Tags'll probably be added at some point, There is some plot., This started as a challange, Warnings for Shakespere, Warnings for racism, Warnings for sexism, Warnings for surgery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-30
Updated: 2015-11-30
Packaged: 2018-05-04 00:59:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5314088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Civillian/pseuds/Civillian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>"The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose," John notes in lukewarm conclusion as he busies himself with his shirt buttons. Lucy doesn't have, nor wish to have, the time to accede.</em><br/> <br/>Various vignettes set during the expanse of season 2, brought on by prompts from lists and the suggestions of others.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Short and Long of it

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to Barnabas "Alfenide" Beuto, who cannot be added as a co-author, but who remains a necessary component of these works all the same.
> 
> This is only five of the mammoth 508 long list of prompts that has cluttered up on a two-year-old notepad document. Obviously, I won't be able to use all of them―some of them are from a modern period and are therefore unsuitable―but I plan to do 5 per chapter. Any other prompts would also be welcome if people wish to share. The more the merrier!
> 
> So without further ado~

 ╔════╗  
**No. 1**  
Buttons  
╚════╝

"I would've hurt him a lot worse than he hurt you."

He doesn't see it.

Dr. John Thackery can see the marks, the bruises left by her father―yet he is ironically incapable of spotting the ones that hurt the most, deep inside, those left by himself.

Lucy knows better than to respond, to give him the satisfaction, but she can't help but question him all the same, the fact that he will likely not understand notwithstanding.

Because that's just how John Thackery works. Acclimatised to looking for physical marks rather than the wounds of emotional strife, heartbreak, where the pain is all the more real, wherever it's loud or accompanied by a shout or a sob, or as quiet as a knife slicing through construction paper; he doesn't see it. Either unwilling or in ignorance or otherwise, he is blind to it.

But she is now better herself. At hiding it. At grasping it and twisting it and pushing it far back in her mind, where she does not have to think about it for days at a time, because she no longer needs to; her father for one is unlikely to return, and now, she has something for herself. Something that she, without them, can work for.

"You think he's the one who hurt me?" She asks, gently sarcastic. His brow lowers at her response, and he looks down at his shirt. For a moment, Lucy wonders if he is going to get a response at all.

"The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose," John notes in lukewarm conclusion as he busies himself with his shirt buttons. He's not wrong, even if he doesn't know it himself, but Lucy doesn't have, nor wish to have, the time to accede.

She tucks the clipboard against her chest as she takes her leave.

* * *

╔═══╗  
**No. 2**  
Opium  
╚═══╝

He feels sick.

Thack knows, incidentally, what he must look like. Once he can tear his mind away from the drugs, the alcohol and _the girl_ , he catches his stooping reflection in a nearby window and while he cannot see much, it gets him thinking. A walking skeleton, half dressed by acceptable standards, stumbling and sniffing through the frigid darkness of night, critters, empty shells of people hiding in the shadows, yes, he knows what he ought to look like. Pupils dilated, hair a tangled mess.

The one thing he needed to support himself is the one thing dragging the carpet from under his feet, but seeing so is only one step forward; it's getting rid of the dependency, freeing yourself, but he's hit a roadblock.

And the one thing he used to use when hitting that mountain, when the dam crumbles, the river overflows... One step forward, yes, but two steps back.

Then Thack finds himself in familiar territory, and he knows what it is that he needs.

It's if he can have it, well, that is the question.

It doesn't hit him immediately. In his half-intoxicated, quarter-sober state, he imagines that the only thing hitting him anytime soon is a pair of horses or the side of a carriage, but the more he trudges down the side street and the more he thinks about this particular shortcut, the stronger it grows. He knows where he is, but why he is there or what he can actually do there is something else entirely. It's abstract, almost, much like a problem on the blackboard in the pathology lab; chalked scribbles that just make less and less sense the more he adds until it's better to just begin again from the start.

The start, well. It is hardly the worst place to begin.

Humans like beginning at the start because they find comfort in predictability, and there if there is one thing that John Thackery finds predictable, happily predictable, it's the woman who lives down the street.

Thack stops gradually in the snow, pauses for a moment.

And before he knows it, he's at her door, bouncing lightly as the orange glow widens. Her head shakes in disbelief when she sees him, and her tone follows along a similar path. He gets it. It's late. He's a mess. He has no reason to be calling right here, right now.

"Abby," he replies to her startled statement.

But then she breathes out in relief and maybe, just maybe, he has a reason for being here after all.

* * *

 ╔═════════╗  
**No. 3**  
Awkward Situations  
╚═════════╝

Back in Paris, he would have given almost anything to see this day.

His wife, sat at the dinner table with the Robertsons. It's something he had dreamt about wryly when he received post back from America, but he knows what Opel is like, what she aspires out of her life, out of theirs, and that is why Edwards had ultimately never considered about projecting them into their current setting. It was why he had left her in Europe. Not out of any sort of spite―despite it all, he had loved her to some extent, either it be her forceful nature or her powerful personality, her drive, her ambition. But when he had the option to return to America to practice medicine, he had left her there with the firm belief that it was impossible. He had set her up in a good home, with a reasonable fortune; she had her life and he would have his.

But here she was now, in America, ready to share it again. In the Robertsons' dining room. Sat next to him, talking about Paris.

America is not ready for Opel Edwards. Half a year ago, it had not been even for Alganon, and to some extent, it still remains that way.

But this is what Edwards had come to expect, and so he fights it with gradual progress, one patient at a time, with Thackery's respect, with the board's begrudging acceptance. A slow journey towards a future in America that included him like it had done in Paris. It would take time; it would be rough―Gallinger proved that, the board proved that―but it would be worth it the end. He's changed so many things in a country that despised progression. 

Opel still finds unacceptable, however, despite everything, and while the Captain is as joyful as ever, even more than normal, he can feel the tension slowly rising and his neck prickling in warning. 

He flashes a searching look at Cornelia, but she's staring down at her plate, and all he can think about is that kiss in his office, and how different his love for Opel had been with her. He wonders, now more than ever, if they could ever make something of the debris left behind after her marriage. Now that she's home for the long duration. It's all he can think about when he's around her. How much he wanted to Philip, if even for a day. 

When she looks up to answer Henry's question, Cornelia does smile, and his heart thunders harder―but it's not from the attention. 

Opel shifts beside him. 

He knows what is coming. 

"If that is the case," she remarks. "Then why aren't his parents not invited to this lunch?"

The silence that follows is cutting. 

Surprised, the Captain lowers his fork. "Excuse me?"

No, America is not ready for Opel Edwards.

She turns to face the Captain, twisting in her chair. "This is a celebration, as you put it, so why is it that they cannot sit here with us instead of having to stay beneath the house where―"

"―because that is not how things are done," Edwards interjects firmly. 

And neither is he.  
 

* * *

╔══════════════╗  
**No. 4**  
One more step and you'll fall  
╚══════════════╝

"I'll ask if we can find us someplace quicker," Philip lets out quickly, almost hurriedly, when they lag behind the Showalters, when he had felt Cornelia tense at the very motion of returning to that house. "Somewhere we can call our own. Away _from_..."

She doesn't say it, but she knows that there will be little point. She knows that for as long as her father-in-law wills it, she will not be going anywhere, that for as long as he has the control over the Robertsons as is claimed, that things will continue on the same. Unless something miraculous happens. "Anything is possible," as her father and brother are so fond of saying.

But despite her doubts, Cornelia squeezes his forearm in wordless gratitude. Let him feel like he is doing something, at least. It's better than nothing.

If it will make him happy.

If it will keep her family safe.

* * *

 ╔══════════╗  
**No. 5**  
The final manuscript  
╚══════════╝

It's here. Right here, completed in full and staring back at him in its final form, set out into two piles, one printed out in French and the other in his own handwriting, neatly stacked and ready waiting. The thrill from having pulled off something as risky as impromptu theft has now been replaced with the foreboding sense of  _he committed impromptu theft_ and the deep, visceral realization that this is... well, it. 

There is nowhere to go from here, Bertie now realises, except to present it to Father.

Bertie is also fairly certain that the seat they are on had been built for one and a half people as opposed to two―the way Genevieve is leaning against him, she's practically on his lap at this point, and the creeping numbness suggests that she has been for quite awhile now, but he doesn't mind. Not really. The company is very much needed. They're in her apartment since he refuses on a fundamental level to return home until he has some answers, but now that he does...

Sighing, he reaches out his free arm to grab the journal from the French Academy of Sciences and skims his thumb over the cover.

"Do you think it will work?" He asks.

Genevieve shifts to sit up a little higher and stretches one of her legs out. Bertie grimaces with the sudden change of pressure. "Well I'm no surgeon..." she replies, simply.

He winces. "I―... Sorry, that was..."

"No." She rolls her eyes, but she is smiling, if only slightly. "No, it's fine. It's _fine_. But if you don't do anything, what do you think will happen?"

"I know what will happen," he grumbles darkly despite himself. "She'll die."

He can feel her gaze on her, but he can't look away from the journal.

"I'm sorry, Bertie."

"No. I just... Everyone, from the people at Columbia to Dr. Zinberg have just written her of and I'm going to be the one who will have to operate to save her life. To try." Bertie just about manages to glance back at her. "I don't know how I'm even supposed to..." A thought pops into his head, and the throws the paper back onto the table, rubbing at his face. "That's even if Father will allow it. He loves my mother, you know. She's been so sick that I've barely seen any of him recently."

Genevieve shrugs gently. "Well, I think it's time that you did. You know, see them."

Bertie considers that for a second, then smiles. "Join us for dinner? Father won't attend, since Mother can't actually eat anything aside from liquids, but Carla's attempt at cutlery delights shouldn't be for me and me alone to suffer." She slaps on the arm, and he laughs. "But in all seriousness?"

"That sounds great."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt No. 2 was originally entitled "Morphine", but I felt that Opium was a little more suitable. It's honestly the most suitable one out of the whole lot, considering, heh. 
> 
> Guess it is best after all to start it off easy.
> 
> Next Time:  
> \- Loose necktie  
> \- Uncontrollable urge  
> \- Cliché  
> \- Figuratively or literally?  
> \- Scruffy handwriting


End file.
